The Back Door to Chicago

Most genealogy societies have been around long enough that they have a significant amount of history, including a written trail of published research results, queries, and transcriptions. Many local periodicals are not indexed. Many are indexed by surname only (making researchers of names like Smith or Jones apoplectic). Many are indexed one issue, or one year, at a time. And then you have to find those indexes.

Fortunately there is a trend to digitize these potential clue factories. Thanks to the Newberry Library and the Chicago Genealogical Society, the Chicago Genealogist now has volumes 1 through 39 (1969-2007) on line and searchable.

Anyone who might have Chicago people should check it out (and then you'll be happier, but as far behind on your day as I am!). But if you're looking for my piece on a Civil War letter from Samuel Lowe, son of Cook County's first sheriff, it's still too recent, but you can read it here.

And speaking of urban research, the front door is open in Pittsburgh, where Historic Pittsburgh has an impressive run of early directories. They are not fully covered in my usual go-to reference, United States On Line Historical Directories.



Harold Henderson, "The Back Door to Chicago," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 5 November 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Chicago Fountains and Families

"I only know one person who became the matriarch of a family at age 24," writes Angela F. Cathey McGhee in the Spring 2012 Chicago Genealogist. The article is her work-in-progress account of her grandmother Mabel (Jordan) Cathey (1885-1970) and family. It's well-documented (with footnotes, not endnotes, thank you!) and well contextualized, and a reminder that we don't have to be done with our research in order to publish it. This is the kind of article that every local, state, and regional quarterly editor needs to be soliciting and encouraging, because publishing lists, indexes, and databases on paper wastes both time and trees.

The Spring 2012 Chicago History includes two lengthy articles on topics of genealogical interest as well:

* Leslie Coburn chronicles the development of public water fountains in Chicago -- a kind of public utility that served humans, horses, and dogs -- while furthering the causes of temperance and kindness to animals.

* Rosalyn R. LaPier and David R. M. Beck give short accounts of eight not-well-enough-known American Indians in Chicago 1890-1940: Potawatomi leader Simon Pokagon, physician Carlos Montezuma (Yavapai), anthropologist William Jones (Fox), athletic director Francis Cayou (Omaha), businessman Scott Henry Peters (Chippewa), opera singer Tsianina Blackstone (Cherokee), baseball player Charles Albert Bender (Ojibwe), and entertainer Evelyn "Billie" Frechette (Menominee). Even when overt racism was not involved, they all lived in the crosshairs of contradiction, needing both to succeed in an overwhelmingly white world and to affirm their own culture and roots.



Angela F. Cathey McGhee, "Building a Chicago Family: The Cathey Group," Chicago Genealogist 44, no. 3 (Spring 2012): 95-101.


Leslie Coburn, "The Water Question," Chicago History 38, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 4-21.


Rosalyn R. LaPier and David R. M. Beck, "Crossroads for a Culture," Chicago History 38, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 22-43.



Harold Henderson, "Chicago Fountains and Families," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 6 July 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

1890 census fragment backwards and inside out

Most of the newspaper squibs that people contribute to genealogy magazines are just colorful filler. Not Craig Pfannkuche's in the current Chicago Genealogist, Spring 2011, 43(3):94-98. He transcribed a Chicago Tribune article from 18 August 1890, listing 4 1/2 pages of names and addresses of Chicagoans who claimed to have been missed by census takers.

I suppose the moral is, always complain when you're missed. The record of your complaint may outlive the record you're complaining about being omitted from!

Old News in the Chicago Genealogist

The Fall Chicago Genealogist, from the Chicago Genealogical Society, is divided into two parts:

The third installment of Virginia Dick's translations of items from the Illinois Staats Zeitung, July 1872 -- a unique window on post-Fire Chicago.

"Remembering the 1920s Decade," by Raymond E. Johnson, recalling Roseland, dirigibles, and a Model-T Ford. "Junk men drove their one-horse wagons down the alleys calling out a standard cry meant to be 'rags -- old iron," but each had his own version and none was intelligible."

Chicago Genealogist Summer 2009

The new issue of Chicago Genealogist has several goodies:

"Thomas Hatton Gravestock," by Richard Gravestock -- a warts-and-all account of the author's grandfather, a high-living saddler who deserted the British army and emigrated to the US, where he ended up with a family in Boston and one in Chicago.

"Illinois Staats Zeitung -- Part III, June 1872," translated by Virginia Dick. This German-language newspaper covered more than just German news!

"The University of Chicago: Remembering a Time," by Raymond E. Johnson, a memoir of Roseland and the U of C, 1939-1942.

"Harrison Technical High School: 1941," tr. Thomas J. Draus. List of graduates.

Chicago Genealogist Spring 2009

The bulk of the latest Chicago quarterly is occupied by another installment of Virginia Dick's translations of obituaries and news items from the German-language Illinois Staats Zeitung, including the discovery in March 1872 of the "carbonized remains" of Franz Heiselmann, a chimney sweep who died in the October 1871 Chicago Fire "when a burning house fell in on him on Division Street, from which he wanted to save a sick woman." The lingering aftermath of the fire plays a role in several of the excerpts.

In "Examination of Title," Craig Pfannkuche fills in the family facts around an old abstract of title from a property on the north side of 36th Place just west of Rockwell Street, including Corwith and Putman families.

Winter 08-09 Chicago Genealogist

From the current issue of Chicago Genealogist:

"Illinois Staats Zeitung Translations," translated from the German by Virginia Dick and submitted by Gail Santroch. First of a series, obituaries and news items 1861 through March 1872.

"Of Wealth and War: Samuel Lowe Writes Home," by Harold Henderson. Identifying the people Samuel asks after in an 1863 letter to my step-great-grandmother reveals something about Chicago society of the time as well as the ongoing war.

"Anna L. Smith: Chicago Suffragette," by Craig L. Pfannkuche with Nancy Merriman. Anna (1872?-1949) worked her way up in the feminist movement and the Democratic Party and by the 1930s had switched to Republicanism. "Anna's contributions to political freedom of action for women in Chicago have been overlooked by historians of women's progressivism in Chicago."

Chicago Genealogist, Summer issue

From the Chicago Genealogical Society:

"Additional Late 19th and Early 20th Century Chicagoans in Photographs," by Craig Pfannkuche

"St. Thomas the Apostle High School: Classes of 1939-1942," submitted by Ellen C. Courtney

"The Family of James Joscelyne," by Ben Joscelyne

"Saint Dominic High School --'The Torch' Yearbook, 1956," submitted by Joseph L. Rhodes

"Wedding Photograph of Otto Daniel Meister and Agnes Uber," submitted by Doris Carlson Sturm

"St. Francis de Sales High School, Graduating Class of 1954," submitted by Thoams J. Draus

Chicago Genealogist, Spring 2008

It's school daze in this quarter's Chicago Genealogist with transcriptions of graduates' data from three high-school yearbooks:

"Austin High School, The 'Maroon & White' Yearbook, January Class of 1948," submitted by Jeanne Larzalere Bloom

"Saint Dominic High School Graduates, 'The Torch' Yearbook 1955," submitted by Joseph L. Rhodes

"William Howard Taft High School, January and June Classes of 1947," submitted by Roy Rauschenberg

Hmmmm. We caution our children and grandchildren about putting too much information on line, but how about those Austin graduates who listed as their ambition "To get my M.R.S. degree"?

Chicago Genealogist, Winter 2007-2008

In the new issue of Chicago Genealogist we find...

"Baptisms in St. James' Catholic Church Register of Confederate Soldiers Interred at Camp Douglas, Chicago, Illinois," submitted by Jeanne Larzalere Bloom and Barbara Baker. (This is quite a find; I just hope Confederate researchers don't get worn out before they think to look in Chicago!)

"Lewis-Champlin School Class of June, 1913, Graduating Exercises," submitted by Doris Carlson Sterm

"Hyde Park High School, 'Aitchpe' Yearbook 1934-1935," all classes, submitted by Joseph L. Rhodes

"Using Coroner's Records," by Mary Penner

"City of Chicago Ordinance 1861, Prohibiting Bathing in the Lake," submitted by Helen Sclair

Chicago Genealogical Society turns 40

Articles in the 40th anniversary issue of Chicago Genealogist (Fall 2007):

"'Did You Know Our Great Great Uncle Was a Mayor of Chicago,'" by Earl J. Beese

"Renamed Streets of Chicago -- 1900," by Gail Santroch (reprint)

"Index Listing of Obituaries from Illinois Staats Zeitung," by Debbe Hagner (reprint)

"The Alwards of Woodbridge, Scipio, South Bend, Niles and Chicago," by Timmins Alward Dodson. This family largely followed a classic migration pattern from northern New Jersey to Cayuga and Livingston counties, New York; Berrien County, Michigan, and St. Joseph County, Indiana; Cook County, Illinois, and points farther west.

"Class 7A-7B of Bateman School, 1939-1940," by Doris Carlson Sturm

"Kindergarten Class of Bateman School, 1934," by Doris Carlson Sturm