Midwesterners in the latest Genealogist

The Genealogist, published twice yearly, is one of the less well known of the top five US genealogy publications. The Spring 2013 issue includes two articles chronicling Midwesterners -- and Marjean Holmes Workman's article makes a significant revision in the Burris family: "Robert James Burris" and his wife "Susan Rebecca Miller" were not two people but four -- brothers who married sisters. In this first of two segments, this family of Burrises inhabited at least nine Ohio counties (Franklin, Madison, Ross, Hardin, Fayette, Van Wert, Marion, Paulding, and "Piqua" [Pickaway!]), eight Indiana counties (Jay, Adams, Jefferson, Grant, Allen, Montgomery, Hamilton, and Henry), and one county in Iowa (Guthrie). It pays to keep up with the latest research!

In the first installment of Gale Ion Harris's account, the James and Lydia Waters family were mainly in Kentucky but also in Clermont (now Brown) County, Ohio, and Bureau County, Illinois.




Marjean Holmes Workman, "The Family of Joseph Burris[s] of Maryland and Madison County, Ohio: Discovering an Unrecorded Marriage," The Genealogist 27, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 51-74.

Gale Ion Harris, "Descendants of James1 and Lydia (Guyton) Waters of Harford County, Maryland: Ohio River Valley Families," The Genealogist 27, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 75-98.



Harold Henderson, "Midwesterners in the latest Genealogist," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 5 June 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Weekend wonderings: discursive endnotes

Why do so many publications at the state level continue to use endnotes rather than footnotes? Is there an insoluble layout issue here that I don't understand?
The spring issue of the Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly includes an annotated transcription of Caleb Swan Walker's autobiographical fragment from 1861 to 1863, chronicling almost daily his experiences in Clermont County just east of Cincinnati and in Dennison General Hospital with wounded soldiers. Annotations are necessary because what was obvious to Caleb is no longer obvious to us. When he alludes to "Hon John McLean" dying on 4 April 1861, an editorial endnote identifies McLean, citing sources. Likewise when Caleb dined with C. W. Deland at the Burnet House, we learn who and what they were.

This kind of diligent well-sourced detail work has been my favorite feature in the Ohio Civil War Genealogy Journal, and I hope the new OGSQ will keep it up after OCWGJ goes away next year. (And, yes, I know they need material and I owe them a bunch about my Ohio relations.) Doing such annotations right is a difficult and underappreciated part of genealogy and microhistory, because the closer we get to the past the more mysterious it can be. (I blogged last month about a less thoroughly annotated Illinois treasure.)

The downside for me is that in this case the annotations appear in endnotes. So they are (a) essential to the enjoyment of the read, and (b) several pages away! I await the graphically-gifted genealogist who can make this kind of annotation work better.




Polly Day Staley et al., "Caleb Swan Walker's Autobiography, 1861-1863, Clermont County and Dennison General Hospital," Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 1 (Spring 2012):39-52.



Harold Henderson, "Weekend wonderings: discursive endnotes," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 26 May 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

So many manuscripts, so little time

The Ohio Historical Society's more-or-less-monthly blog "Collections" just announced the availability of 28 new manuscript and audio-visual collections. The descriptions are a little terse, but if you plug in any interesting collection's number at the catalog page you can get a better idea of what's there. It turns out that collection #VFM5693, "War with Mexico Muster Rolls," consists of 7 rolls for the 1st Ohio Volunteer Infantry in that war. Collection #VFM 5699 is Civil War muster rolls, but almost all from Clermont County only. Check 'em out, but also check out the OHS's new hours before you head for Columbus. Amy's Genealogy Etc. Blog has the sad story of the ongoing funding disaster that is slowly engulfing OHS.