Indiana Genealogist December 2010

The current issue of the Indiana Genealogist quarterly is the last one you'll see in print, unless you print it out from your computer, reports editor Rebecca E. Tomerlin of Valparaiso. Indiana Genealogical Society members can view this issue and later ones in PDF format.

The issue contains more than twenty items, including a number of good pictures of Indiana soldiers' graves and memorials in Tennessee, and much more. My eye was caught by two footnoted articles and a "lost" record retrieved:

Dawne Slater-Putt, "Establishing a Possible Identity of Ford Myers: a Fort Wayne Photo Subject," an especially good detective story if you've ever sighed over an orphaned photo in an antique shop.

Penelope Mathiesen, "Burgoon Church and the Burgoon Family in Monroe County, Indiana" -- the family donated land to the Baptist church but were not members; the children moved and married elsewhere but several returned for burial.

Marjorie Weiler-Powell's find of a complete family record of James and Grace (Cade) Davis in the Dearborn County Circuit Court records for 14 July 1829, under the heading, "Register of Free Persons of Color."

Indiana Genealogist for March 2009

An absorbing and diverse mix of articles in this quarter's Indiana Genealogist, as well as a timely reminder to would-be contributors that there could be something in it for them to contribute an article to the quarterly. The 2008 Elaine Spires Smith Family History Writing Award ($500) will be given to the best article over 1000 words received for the magazine in 2008 that wasn't a transcription or abstract. Fourteen are in the running; the IGS publication committee will judge.

Why don't more state and regional publications try something like this? It's a low-cost incentive to get us out of our databases and onto our word processors!

March's contents include:

Ron Darrah, "Indiana World War II Genealogy Can Be Tricky," a quick and informative trip around the difficulties of tracking the Greatest Generation. The Indiana legislature made it considerably harder in 2007 by closing off most access to AGO Form 53 certificates from the WW2 Bonus Act.

Robert de Berardinis, "Four French Naval Infantrymen at Fort Vincennes Who Wanted to Become Settlers."* The author has so much to say about the intricacies of eighteenth-century French records on both sides of the Atlantic that it's possible to lose sight of the infantrymen. I know there's some real meat here, because I understood it a lot better the second time I read it.

Rhonda Dunn, "Finding Proof of Family Lore, or, The Search for Redeeming Qualities in My Mean Ole Great-Grandpa, George Dunn." Still some mysteries here, but good evidence that family history can tell less than ideal stories about our ancestors without flinching.

Timothy Paul Reese, "Isaac D. Robbins of Dearborn County, Indiana." Robbins, the author's great-great-grandfather, had an eventful Civil War in the 26th Indiana Volunteer Infantry.

Plus listings of "When They Came to Gary," Indiana Civil War soldiers buried in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, and more...

*footnoted