City Directory Coverage Can Be Spotty in Many Ways

These days my genealogy life is busy and not very productive of blog posts. But this morning I re-learned a lesson already known to genealogists who are cautious or experienced or both.

We've all benefited greatly from the increased on-line presence of city directories on commercial websites. Today I was trying to track a particular couple through a few years of on-line city directories for Kansas City, Kansas.

The name I sought was not in Ancestry.com's index for 1945, 1947, 1954, 1955, and 1959 -- but when I went into the directory itself, it was there for each of those years. The error was not systematic; other family members with the same fairly distinctive surname were indexed.

Not every year is represented on Ancestry.com, and I wondered if KCK directories were not published every year, or whether the microfilming was more complete than digital coverage. It is, a little bit: the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center's microtext catalog shows that they have the 1948 KCK directory, which Ancestry.com does not have (and which I will have to check on my next visit). On the other hand, Ancestry.com has the 1961 and 1963 directories, which may or may not be on the shelves in Fort Wayne, but are not in the microfilm collection.

Of course, directories themselves are not gospel either, though sometimes they may be about as close as we can get to some facts. I remember having one person's death record I had: she was survived several years by her directory listing!

No news here, just a reminder that good genealogy standards and practices survive digitization and other novelties. You'll find this one in Genealogy Standards #13: "Wherever possible, . . . research plans follow such materials [indexes and family histories and similar items] to original records and primary information." Happy Searching Holidays!

Three ways to get your genealogy material out there without actually publishing

A recent discussion on the Transitional Genealogists Forum got into the question of how we can get our research findings "out there" without actually publishing them. I myself am a big advocate of getting stuff published, but it's worth knowing that there are alternatives. The first two came up in the discussion, and the third didn't occur to me until it was over.

(1) FamilySearch accepts various kinds of record donations.

(2) The Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center has a "photocopy exchange" program, where if you send them a manuscript, they'll bind one copy for you and one for their shelves.

(3) National Genealogical Society writing contest winner gets published in the NGS Quarterly, but other entries can end up in the NGS book loan collection at the St. Louis County Public Library. I was surprised and mostly pleased when I heard from someone who had located and read my non-winning submission on a Wisconsin family from back in 2008. "Mostly" pleased because that work had some deficiencies that I've always intended to fix . . .

The good thing about publishing in journals, instead of the above, is that some of them have editors who will help us improve our reasoning and writing. (And all of them need more material!) So I'm still a big advocate of that; the only way I'll become a lesser advocate would be if I went on a diet.

What all these options require is that we Actually. Write. Something. Do it! It's the best method of preservation.

Summer 2014 Ohio Genealogy News with repositories

The peppy Ohio Genealogy News has information that many researchers will want: detailed information about the Ohio History Connection (formerly Ohio Historical Society) by Shelley Bishop, the Ohio Genealogical Society Library by Tom Neel (in an interview), and the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana by me. Those who frequent the center will recognize the cover photo: a sidelong view of its banks of microfilmed city directories from all over.

OGN also has a way of including material of interest well northwest of Toledo and southeast of Marietta -- in this issue, Diane Van Skiver Gagel describes the tortures our 19th-century ancestors went through to be photographed.

Even those few with no Ohio relatives will find useful material here. Join OGS to get in on the action and read OGN on line.




Harold Henderson, "Allen County Genealogy Center: Midwestern Mega-Library," Ohio Genealogy News 45 (Summer 2014): 14-17.


Harold Henderson, "Summer 2014 Ohio Genealogy News with repositories," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 18 July 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday: Genealogy in bulk? Twelve suggestions

When I have a choice, I prefer to work on one genealogy problem at a time. But there are other times -- such as when the task becomes identifying and documenting all descendants and spouses in three of four generations.

And in order to meet standards, we have to find the people first. Most of the following items work better when working on people who lived on both sides of the Dark Age in the US (that is, before and after 1850). Deep in the Dark Age or well up into the 20th century would be another post, actually several different posts depending on the location.

* When possible, do the work in a good library or archive where it's easy to switch from on line to on paper. Some on-line materials are hard to navigate, and some on-line providers omit crucial material like prefaces and introductions where authors and compilers tell something (intentionally or otherwise) about how they did their work. For me that place is in  Fort Wayne. More info here.  One practical reason to make it the HQ-away-from-home for this work is that it has the world's best collection of genealogical periodicals, indexed on PERSI. Get the basic info from Find My Past and then get the relevant call numbers from the online catalog.

* If this is a perennial project, check the old folders, binders, emails, and notes created long ago and scattered on various web sites or cloud locations for clues that may mean more now than they did at the time.

* Use property and probate records if they are within reasonable driving distance, or if they have been digitized. (Not using property records could land you in trouble. Using probate records will not be the death of you.)

* Don't start by searching broadly. Approximate a birth/marriage/death date and place and look for candidate parents/spouses/children then and there. Check metasites for digital newspaper availability.

* If you have a region or state, search broadly within those confines, for instance New England. Peruse Michael Hait's inevitably incomplete Online State Resources for Genealogy 3.0.

* Ancestry and FamilySearch have some of the same data, but their indexes are not interchangeable. Search both. If you have candidate parents, search Family Search's main site using only their names in the parent boxes.

* Google Books and Internet Archive often harbor old periodicals as well as old genealogy books. A lot of microfilms have been digitized and uploaded to Internet Archive as well.

* Less famous venues can be useful when searching broadly, such as the GLO site for federal-land states. While we're waiting for the master newspaper site to emerge, give a try to the larger collections of on-line city directories on Fold3 and Ancestry as well as local providers. For tips see this metadirectory. (But as you close in on the person, the ability to survey every year of a given city's directory becomes crucial.)

* Find A Grave is the best, but it is not the only cemetery site. Also, it contains random unsourced assertions about unpictured grave markers. Which brings me to . . .

* Don't be a source snob. Put on your hazmat suit and acid-resistant gloves, or whatever you think you need, and dive into genealogical dumpsters. Source-free clues appearing there may be verifiable elsewhere -- or at least may lead back to a contemporary document of some kind.

* Use ArchiveGrid within reason, especially if your target people had literate and gossipy neighbors, or belonged to record-creating institutions or societies.

* Don't forget to write it up! Local, state, or national, genealogy editors everywhere are waiting for you.

Enjoy the bulk-genealogy chase. In my experience, it is likely to provide both surprises and -- a bouquet of interesting problems, each of which will require up-close and personal work to solve.




Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/elisfanclub/6208669725 per Creative Commons


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday: Genealogy in bulk? Twelve suggestions," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 9 June 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Now up to eleven mostly Midwestern indexes and finding aids

In addition to the nine links posted last year, two additional research aids are available on my web site:

Wisconsin Small City Directories 1903-1936 -- four rolls of microfilm published by City Directories of the United States, containing 29 directories for various years for more than 24 different towns and 7 different counties -- but labeled neither on the boxes nor at the beginning of the films themselves!

In order to make this resource useable I have spooled through the four films and listed title and publisher (when available) and date, and posted the lists and indexed them. This Wisconsin listing joins similar listings for Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. I have included CDUS's numbers as well as the numbers assigned to them at the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, where I consulted them.

Few of these towns were able to support annual or even biennial directories, but it's a good bet that diligent researchers who visit local libraries and archives will find directories for more years than were microfilmed here. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries each of these towns had their own confident local business community.

Indiana private laws relating to La Porte County 1843-1847 and 1850, abstracted from Google Books. This is an experiment in making this relatively obscure resource more available. These are drawn from "session law" books describing the laws passed relating to particular people and organizations in each legislative session. Are your people mentioned?



Harold Henderson, "Now up to eleven mostly Midwestern indexes and finding aids," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 24 April 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

On Line State Resources for Genealogy 3.0

There's an old saying, "When you're tired of London, you're tired of life." Well, when you get tired of browsing this book, you're tired of genealogy.

Earlier this month my friend and colleague Michael Hait released the third edition of his On Line State Resources for Genealogy. It's up to 1140 pages and more than 9000 resources -- hosted at a bewildering variety of web sites, with a much deeper and different reach than the popular free and subscription mega-sites.

Contrary to the title, the book includes on-line resources at the national level including the National Archives. Some sites require sign-in. "Resources" include images of original records; derivative records (such as transcriptions and abstracts); authored works; and finding aids and indexes. As stated in the introductory material, use the finding aids and indexes and derivative sources to lead to the original records when possible.

The table of contents is arranged by state and then by repository in apparently random order within each state. A click on any entry in the table of contents takes you directly to the repository's listings, and a click on the specific repository's link takes you there.

Midwestern researchers will be interested to know that Indiana listings occupy 92 pages, Illinois 61, Ohio 46, and Michigan and Wisconsin each 14.

This undertaking is nothing less than gargantuan. And it includes resources I did not know about but should have. Still it doesn't have everything: absent are La Crosse, Wisconsin, city directories; the Monroe County, Wisconsin, Local History Room; and several name indexes available at the Chicago branch of NARA.

But as the numbers mount up this enterprise faces a deeper problem -- how to organize the resources. Not only are they proliferating daily (the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center just announced eleven new ones). Often the originating agency may be different, or in a different place, than the record itself (such as county records created and listed under the name of a state agency). Equally bothersome, it is also often difficult to discern where one repository ends and another begins, since the same collection may be reached through more than one portal. It certainly helps that this book is searchable and not in print form, but part of its value is that the resources also be rationally browseable.

This compilation is itself an essential part of a "reasonably exhaustive search" as prescribed by BCG's Genealogy Standards, but other searches need to be made both within and outside of it.

Another form of browsing is to follow the compiler's new blog featuring a resource every few days.






Michael Hait, comp., On Line State Resources for Genealogy, third edition (PDF/ebook, privately printed, 2013).


Harold Henderson, "On Line State Resources for Genealogy 3.0," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 18 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]







Harold Henderson, "On Line State Records for Genealogy 3.0," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 18 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

How to research

Yesterday at Allen County, I found a published cemetery reading. In order to take it home, I photocopied the page it was on, the earlier page that identified the cemetery, two earlier pages that located the cemetery in a map of the township, and the title page of the book. If the authors had written an introduction explaining how they conducted their project, I could have made six copies instead of just one.

Granted, it's not the best evidence -- that would be a visit to the original record (the grave marker or sexton's list) or a photo on Find A Grave or other similar collaborative site. But in order to know about the information I did have, I really did need all those copies. No normal person would remember a year later exactly where that single page came from.

Of course, that specific procedure of photocopying is 20th-century stuff. But the same principles apply when I pull a microfilm or whisk over to check an original census page on Ancestry or an Ohio probate on FamilySearch. Unless I know where the information came from, it's not all that valuable.

Taking the time to image or write down the particulars of the source before opening it up is the best way to research -- in any century.


Harold Henderson, "How to research," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 22 November 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Just another day at the office . . .

What you can learn by spending a day on actual printed materials at the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center . . .

. . . there are worse things than surname-only indexes, but not many. (In another couple of generations "indexes" may be as little understood as cursive writing.)

. . . a genealogical periodical from Omaha is called "Remains To Be Found."

. . . the father-in-law of the son of a main character in a forthcoming article died of unnatural causes in 1835 in Canton, Fulton County, Illinois: a tornado drove a wagon-wheel spoke through his groin. This unexpected death information appeared in an abstract of an 1892 newspaper article.

. . . Walsh County, North Dakota, published four volumes of cemetery readings labeled as volumes 25, 26, 27, and 28.

. . . the charmingly titled book Forty Years of Funerals did not include the funeral I was looking for.

. . . the first case heard by the (traveling) Supreme Court in Greene County, Ohio, was the first-degree murder of an Indian (Billy George AKA Kenawa Tuckans) by two white men in 1804.

. . . when you're J. P. Morgan's son and you die in 1943, you get an obituary that names seven generations of ancestors. (OK, it was in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, but still . . . )




Harold Henderson, "Just another day at the office . . .," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 8 November 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Happy new month for genealogists

October is Family History Month. Let me count the ways:

* The Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center is having a program every single day, including an introduction to the new PERSI Thursday morning. (This image is theirs from 2011.)

* Heritage Books is having a 20% off sale through the 5th.

* The Board for the Certification of Genealogists has added three documents to their web site on which to practice transcribing and abstracting (which make up part of one of the seven portfolio requirements for certification). They have also added audio files of two guys who had to go through the certification process twice in order to succeed. BCG is celebrating the 50th year of its age this month as well.

* In case you doubted it, FamilySearch has plans for 2014 and beyond.

* An economist takes the long view of his genealogy and how related we all are. No, it's not footnoted.



Harold Henderson, "Happy new month for genealogists," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 1 October 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Land research help and more Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center

Did your research target buy or homestead federal land between 1820 and 1908? Did (s)he try to? Then you need to check out friend and colleague Kimberly Powell's correlation of at least three different on-line resources over at About.com. Tract books may be your new BFF.



A friend has pointed out an important omission from my Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center research book, Finding Ancestors in Fort Wayne. When planning a research trip, you can produce a private list of materials to consult, and include ratings and comments or reviews. When you locate a title in the main catalog, click on "Save or Tag," set up your account (it's quick and does not require holding a card at the library), and proceed to listmaking. (NOTE: This feature applies materials listed in the main catalog. There are several others to be consulted as well, including microtext, which does not have this capacity.) I will include this feature when the booklet is revised, but in the meantime there's this big conference coming up in three weeks...





Kimberly Powell, "Searching BLM Tract Books on FamilySearch," About.com Genealogy, 30 July 2013 (http://genealogy.about.com/b/2013/07/30/searching-blm-tract-books-on-familysearch.htm : viewed 30 July 2013).


Harold Henderson, "Land research help and more Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 2 August 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Tips for FGS week (August 20-24)

* Are  you traveling from the east via I-90, I-80, or I-76, toward Fort Wayne for the FGS conference three weeks from now? Consider using US 30 west from Mansfield, Ohio, rather than the Ohio Turnpike. It's now built to near-interstate standards, has no tolls, less traffic, and less construction than the alternative. You could even plan a visit to the Ohio Genealogical Society's beautiful new library south of Mansfield off I-71 at Bellville.

* If you have a knotty problem or other genealogical question, it is not too late to sign up for a free 20-minute genealogy consultation at FGS. These will be scheduled between 3:30 and 6 pm Tuesday, August 20.

* If you're aiming to research at the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center before, during, or after the conference, check out my free PDF booklet on how to prepare and what to expect: Midwest Roots under "Finding Ancestors in Fort Wayne." As always, the more preparation, the better the research experience.

* If you can't attend this time, check out Cinamon Collins's great post over at (Mis)Adventures of a Genealogist, on how to stay at home.

(I am on the publicity committee for FGS 2013, but this is an unofficial post, because since when does conference PR include tips on how to stay home?)


Harold Henderson, "Tips for FGS week (August 20-24)," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 29 July 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

The benefits of being a wishy-washy genealogist

My article entitled "Indecision as a Genealogical Virtue" has been published at Archives.com. It includes several examples of how we can create brick walls by clinging too dearly to our assumptions or premature conclusions. A genealogist who can entertain multiple possibilities while continuing to research is likely to be a happier genealogist in the end.

Most examples are from my own research. Dawne Slater-Putt kindly allowed me to summarize and quote from a case she recently worked on and posted as "Perseverance Pays Off" in the blog of the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.


Harold Henderson, "The benefits of being a wishy-washy genealogist," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 26 June 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.] 

The 200-Year-Old Genealogist

Everyone who's even thinking of going to the Federation of Genealogical Societies' national conference in Fort Wayne in August (or who's thinking of signing up before July 1 to get the early-bird discount) should already be reading both the FGS conference blog and the blog of the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library, one of the two local hosts. In just the past few days I've learned:

* how the center's unique adaptation of the Dewey Decimal System works, so that you won't miss anything in searching the printed materials, and

* that the librarians on staff there have among them more than 200 years' worth of genealogy experience.

My free 26-page guide to the center, Finding Ancestors in Fort Wayne, doesn't include either of these fun facts -- yet -- but it can still help you make the most of your limited time there.




Harold Henderson, "The 200-Year-Old Genealogist," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 17 June 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

You just have to be there

At the end of the day, genealogy is still about local knowledge. Most records are not on line. Most are not even microfilmed. Just as the best fertilizer for a garden is the gardener's footsteps, the best genealogy comes from being where your research targets lived and where their records are now (not necessarily the same place!).

Last week I had the good fortune to visit Warren County in western Indiana. Their historical society in Williamsport -- open only by appointment -- has indexed local newspaper clippings in binders beginning in 1864. They have obituaries indexed through 1950 and after 1969. Three volumes of complete cemetery inscriptions were completed in 1989, with a master index. Most of this material is not on line (some newspaper transcriptions, somewhat searchable, are in the Williamsport-Washington County Public Library's history database). Nor is it on film or in the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. You just have to be there.



Harold Henderson, "You just have to be there," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 7 June 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.] 

Self-referential Friday with new web site intro

The old web site introduction seemed a little long-winded, so I'm trying the following on for size:

Welcome to Midwest Roots!

I have been a professional writer since 1979, a genealogist since 1999, a professional genealogist since 2009, and a Board-certified professional genealogist since 1 June 2012. Use the “Contact Harold” box to get in touch.
I hope this site will help your genealogy quest in at least one of the following ways:

(1) Use free resources here, including

• my guide to researching at the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne,
• a selection of free lookups,
• a list of Family History microfilms already in the Midwest,
• a list of state and regional genealogy periodicals nationwide,
• lists of the above-average holdings of Midwestern city directories in Valparaiso and Indiana newspapers in Mishawaka, and
• my finding aids for small-city city directory microfilm reels from Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.

(2) Hire research help. I can do lookups (flat fee) or research brick-wall problems (hourly rate). If you’re not sure whether this will help, check out my list of genealogy publications or use the form to ask for free advice. I am based in northwest Indiana, near Michigan and Illinois. I have researched in many areas but am most familiar with the Midwest and upstate New York.

(3) Hire writing or citation help. I can critique or edit your draft of an article or presentation. (If you’re not sure whether this will help, send me 5 pages and I’ll send you a free critique.) Or I can focus on bringing your source citations closer to Evidence Explained standards.

(4) Find a presentation that appeals to your society.

(5) Find a useful blog post at midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com.


Harold Henderson, "Self-referential Sunday with a new web site intro," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 14 April 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Finding Ancestors in Fort Wayne: The Genealogist's Unofficial One-Stop Guide to the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center

I once read an article about a woman who moved to Fort Wayne in order to work on her genealogy. I know just how she felt.

When I first went to the Allen County Public Library there, my concept of genealogy consisted of photocopying lots of derivative sources and downloading what little there was on the internet. In those days the stacks were closed and you had to request items on paper slips. Now the Genealogy Center is bigger and better, with open stacks, and I'm older and less ill-informed, in part thanks to the patience of its staff.

Over the years it gradually dawned on me that this is not a normal library. It's big, it contains many unexpected resources on and off line, and to get the most out of a trip there I sometimes need to plan how to make my plan.

Which of the six catalog entry points should you start with? Books? Periodicals? Microtext? Microfilmed newspapers? Digitized Fort Wayne newspapers? The Center's own databases, including three specialized research portals?

How do you get at the mammoth collection of city directories? Or the world's best collection of genealogy periodicals? Which of its holdings may now be available on line? (And where?) No wonder some of my knowledgeable friends had trouble navigating it.

Over the years the center has produced brochures, pathfinders, and an introductory video -- and maintained generous hours and an unparalleled staff of helpful genealogists who are also librarians (or is it the other way around?). This is all good, but nothing quite gives the whole picture.

So I've tried my hand at an unofficial independent guidebook to what I think is the best all-purpose genealogy destination between Salt Lake City and the east coast. This booklet does NOT describe all the center's holdings (I'm not that crazy). It does explain how you can more efficiently find what you need -- even if you never actually manage to show up!

It comes in four parts:

• Introduction (p. 2), 

• Before You Go (p. 4), 

• When You Arrive (p. 11), and 

• Wait! There's More! (p. 25), with two appendixes that link to a 13-part blog history of the center and include some numbers showing just how far it reaches beyond its Indiana and Ohio homeland.

It's a free 26-page PDF download with live links for on-line use.

I hope it will help as you make plans -- either to attend the Federation of Genealogical Societies 2013 conference there in August, or to visit another time, or to make better use of the library's resources remotely. Let me know of corrections or potentially useful additions.



Harold Henderson, Finding Ancestors in Fort Wayne: The Genealogist's Unofficial One-Stop Guide to the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center (La Porte, IN: author, April 2013; http://www.midwestroots.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ACPLGC-April-2013.pdf).

Speaking Alert

Tomorrow night I'll be talking (briefly) at the La Porte County Genealogical Society on how to find your way around the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. Start by looking at all six catalogs and finding aids . . .

I posted about other speaking engagements in 2013 here.

Some Good Words for Ancestry in General and Ancestry Trees in Particular

Eight years ago I was searching, as hard as I knew how, for one of my granddaughter's great-great grandfathers. From his approximate birthdate in the 1920 census, I knew he should be in the WWI draft registrations . . . but I didn't know where. At that time I used a genealogy database, and with unusual faithfulness at the time I entered the following:

. . . did not register for the WWI draft in Atlanta, Georgia; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; or Mayes, Carter, Cherokee, Muskogee, Tulsa, or Wagoner counties, Oklahoma (including the cities of Tulsa and Muskogee).

I conducted this search in August 2004 at the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, using (if memory serves) the best available interface: a card catalog file of registrants organized geographically by draft board. It took a while. (Now I wish I had a picture of it!)

Recently I picked up this thread and quickly found him in Ancestry's on-line index -- he was in a different Oklahoma county, with a fairly informative draft card as these things go.

In addition, I was alerted to some information on a public user tree on Ancestry. Not only had the tree owner found information we didn't have, s/he had post images of the sources they used as well. These were derivative sources but they were a good start, especially given that they named said great-great grandfather's father!

Many of us complain regularly about both Ancestry the megabusiness and the often dubious contributors to public family trees. But we should also keep those complaints in perspective: compared to what alternative?



Harold Henderson, "Some Good Words for Ancestry in General and Ancestry Trees in Particular," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 4 January 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Personal Papers -- or Public?

Yesterday I was frolicking through the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center's complete collection of the maniacally detailed WPA inventories of county records as of 75 years ago. (Use the main catalog and search on call number 977.2 H62IC; the 92 counties are numbered in alphabetical order from Adams to Whitley.) I noticed that in many counties the chief health officer maintained his office in his private office. And frequently, some marriage records were in his custody as well.

A lot of Indiana Justice of the Peace official record books disappeared because they were considered the justice's personal property rather than a public record. As I understand it, Indiana marriage records were the clerk's job until the 1880s when the state and local boards of health were established and took an interest in having more information recorded more systematically; thus no longer were all records in one place.

Is it possible that some of these marriage records became lost as health officers left office or died? Inquiring microhistorians want to know.


Harold Henderson, "Personal Papers -- or Public?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 6 December 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Three Talks at FGS 2013

I will be giving three talks at the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Fort Wayne next August (just a little more than nine months from now):

Thursday, August 22, 5pm, "First Steps in Indiana Research," from Indiana's Big Four to some archives and county-level resources.

Friday, August 23, 2pm, "Beyond Fort Wayne, Madison, and the Newberry: Lesser-Known Midwestern Archives," a personal selection of useful archives I have known in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Saturday, August 24, 8 am, "Three Ways to Improve Your Speaking Ideas," sponsored by the Genealogical Speakers Guild with some ideas applicable even to those who don't lecture.

If none of these tickle your fancy, FGS has plenty more to offer, and the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center as a jumbo-sized research bonus.




Harold Henderson, "Three Talks at FGS  2013," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 13 November 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]