Clue Wagon!

I don't think I've said enough about Milwaukee-based blogger Kerry Scott's "Clue Wagon." If I may paraphrase my mom on a different subject, Scott is old enough to know what needs to be said, and young enough to go ahead and say it. Unlike me, she doesn't cheap out with a quick reference to some other good site. You get a good read, good advice, an occasional ancestor profile, and a full dose of attitude. If you haven't read this recent selection of my favorites, you should:

"Why It Doesn't Matter Which Genealogy Software You Use" (7 February)

"Why The Facebook Cartoon Pictures Make Me Want To Poke My Eye Out with a Fork" (10 December)

"In Which I Pretty Much Piss Off the Entire Genealogy Establishment" (20 October)

"5 Reasons I Wish I Could Travel Back in Time and Smack My 1995-Self" (28 September)

I don't read anybody's blog faithfully any more, so I've probably missed some good ones. I will betray my age if I say that Scott has a bright future in print venues as well, but I certainly hope she does. If she doesn't, the days of print are numbered.

NGS doctor files

Kerry Scott over at Clue Wagon has a happy post on the good results she had from the National Genealogical Society's AMA Deceased Physician Research with a medical relative surnamed Sykes, who got his start in Wisconsin and Illinois.

My experience with this service has also been positive. (Some of the same raw material is available on FHL microfilm.) As Scott says so well, "If you already have an Ancestry subscription, your very next purchase should be an NGS membership…that’s where you’ll learn to do it right."

If your MD research target attended medical school, take a look in local archives or successor institutions. Some of these places had publications, and some of these publications tracked alumni after graduation. Such publications live on even if the institution itself is long gone. (Chicago's Hahnemann Medical College is an example; it was a homeopathic stronghold in its day but gradually became more broad-minded before being merged out of existence.) If available, this resource can make a nice combination with the American Medical Association and related records retrieved by NGS.